ArryinSeattle

I'm sitting here, in the jury duty waiting room with a lot of quiet time. I forgot to bring my book that I've been reading - so, decided what better time than now to get back into my blog. Lots to catch up on and so many learnings to share. The biggest update is that as of the end of September 2018, I am no longer with Storm. Yes, so it's been about three months since then, and I've been working on focusing my full attention on what matters most in life.

Life tip: You can tell a lot about a person's values by 1) what they spend most of their time on and 2) what they spend most of their money on, and the 3) kinds of friends a person associates with closely. It's very telling.

October, November, December Summary (Not necessarily in any order):

TIME WITH FAMILY - This is one of the biggest most important part of my life that knowingly and willingly I did not spend enough time with over the past several years. I'm lucky in that I have a full family, my husband and extended family that was willing to jump onboard to do all that they could to enable me to go out and be in the trenches of startup life. I'm now daily able to cook for my family, sometimes more than three meals a day. I get to talk more often with my husband. One thing is that even while living with a spouse, it's easy to get caught up in life and forget to really connect - so we've been coming up with creative ways to really connect regularly. We've been solidifying our relationship even more these days. I get to have quality time with our tot, who is just so full of joy and wonder. Watching him and being a part of his life is simply the most amazing creative experience I have ever been through. It's very difficult - and it is so rewarding too. Nothing worthwhile comes easy.​​

HOME OPERATIONS - Last week, to spend the week putting up family photos of all the love and memories we've created together was so refreshing. I even enjoy laundry these days - particularly doing the laundry of our tot. Folding his little shirts and pants melts my heart. I had no idea that as a mom, I would love smelling him and his scent so much. Intoxicating with love. My next project is to start the cleanse before our next baby miracle arrives in April 2019. Cleanse the home of unnecessary items and donate away.

RECLAIM MY HEALTH - Over the past couple of years, my health got worse and worse, and worse. The bottom of my health woes happened in March 2018 to June, 2018. In June, especially with my birthday and turning another year older, I decided that enough was enough. An example of what can happen to your body under extreme stress over a long period of time? Head to toe psoriasis. Yes. Head to toe. Psoriasis. Personally, to understand how shocking this was for me, is to know that I've been so very lucky to literally have had a handful pimples my entire life (of almost 40 years). No skin issues ever. Since then, I've been watching my food intake, getting enough sleep, drinking a lot more water and then some. I've even done the phototherapy sessions three times a week, changed all of my shampoos, conditioners, soaps, and topical lotions head to toe. Life changing. It's only now, more than 10 months since my health plummeted that I've been able to get the psoriasis under control (and I'm one of the lucky ones to be able to do that.) Side note: once I decided in June that "enough was enough" and that I had to get my health back, shortly after in July we were able to finally miraculously conceive our second child. It's amazing what can happen with the mind is in sync with the heart and body.

COOKING - Not having cooked regularly for years has been draining for me, and my family. My husband appreciates this language of love, the act of service - and I know it means a lot to him. While perhaps the modern "feminist" woman may not believe in cooking any more, I am in the camp that to be a truly whole human in this life experience, knowing how to curate, cultivate, and cook your food from start to finish is a really important piece of knowledge that can only better the quality of life for me and my family. I'm not the best - with continued intentional practice, I know I'll get better and better, and better.

GARDENING GOALS - Speaking of which, gardening is not my forte. At all. I have always had a brown thumb. Guaranteed. It has bothered me - and so, one of my life goals right now is to experiment, iterate, and learn to find my green thumb. I started with this basil plant (it's struggling, but still alive after a few months now). I'm now on to green onions. I'm now thinking about adopting an indoor house plant - one of those NSA approved plants that help detoxify the indoor home air like the spider plant or peace lily. Practice makes perfect.

READING BOOKS - I used to read 1-2 books minimum a week. I completely fell off the book wagon the past few years and it's been a shame of mine. My husband will attest, that my book backlog however has continued to grow as my book acquisition habits are still going very strong. I'm happy to downsize on dresses, shoes, whatever - my books, I will haul them box by box to whatever home I reside in. Each year consistently, buying books is where I continue to spend. Kindle still doesn't do it for me - I need to smell, the crackle, and feel of a real book in my hands when I read.

SEEING FRIENDS - As we all go through different life stages and chapters, I've noticed friends come and go. Mostly go off to the side to focus on having a family, or rather, surviving. This change that we go through as we field life stages used to really bother me - now, I hold on less tightly and assume that the friendship will outlast all the craziness of life. Made peace. Now it's literally letting people that are important to me know that I'm here, and that I am thinking of them. Sometimes, the stars of various schedules/ timing have allowed us to meet in person recently.

STEALTH PROJECT(S) - This is taking up a lot of time. A lot of time. Some parts of it are great because I'm meeting some very interesting new people and disciplines. Some parts of it are amazing because I get to reconnect with some of the most brilliant minds I've ever known in hopes of working together again soon. Some of it is trying to wrangle up enough of the right kind of energy to push a ball forward into the light.

WTIA BLOCKCHAIN COUNCIL - This also takes up a bit of time, and it's worth it. Humans do what we do, we tend to work in silos and we each want to be the owners/leaders fighting for the same principles in many ways. The Blockchain space is no different. The Council is about: 1) bringing those of influence together to lift Seattle to be one of the great global hubs for blockchain technology. It only makes sense when you think about Seattle as being the cloud capital (with AWS/Azure), enterprises, technology talent, and more. The Council is also about 2) helping bring about awareness and educating the general masses about blockchain. The current dialogue is wrong in that blockchain equals bitcoin which equals evil and money laundering. We can change that, together --> and together, we shall rise.

MENTORING & SERVICE - Something I will always do until I die. My husband calls me the "social worker" who can't help it. I want to help others, I want to bring people together, and I want to do good. I've been that way since I've been very young. I can't help it. Mentoring students at the University of Washington, working with other female founders of the Female Founders Alliance and Ready Set Raise, meeting founders at Galvanize, and more. It's always great for me to stay fresh in learning about how other founders and entrepreneurs think and the problems they are working to solve.

As of 730AM PST, Monday, September 24, 2018, I am no longer part of Storm. It's official and three months has passed by. I'll write more in the new year about what I've been up to - in the meantime, lots of cooking, reading, and spending time with family.

From across media and entertainment, to business and politics, it is the era where diverse people and #women are starting to get a seat at the table, take on the leading roles, and shine in the spotlight.

The #future is being redefined with all of us working #together. Let's be pro-human-kind, pro-respect-for-life, and pro-thinking-for-yourself. ​

The Democrats are now back in control of the House of Representatives, bring a semi-sense of balance back to our political landscape. And we have women, people of diverse backgrounds getting seats at the table in this mid-term election. Maybe we can start working together. Maybe we can unclog our ears and listen more.

In October, 2018, California became the first state to enact a law that makes it mandatory to have at least one woman on Corporate boards. (LINK) This is huge - and begins the shift of influence, power and wealth in corporate America.

Amy Nelson of the Riveter (and I'm a huge fan of her work as an example of this trend) is making major traction for her new kind of coworking space. Yes, if co-working is the present and the future, then the work space should not be a frat house. (LINK) We'll see more and more of this kind of work space - and I'm really glad that we'll actually start having work spaces that make sense for all human beings, not just bros and dudes.

We have so many women taking leading, powerful roles across entertainment. It's awesome. A Star is Born, Wonder Woman, and so many great titles portray women that are heroes, fighters, warriors, and so much more than the 2-dimensional one that only exists to bare children and serve dinner.

Financial sector along with corporate governance models are being shaken up thanks to this brilliant opportunity that is opening up with blockchain, cryptocurrencies, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), together with the push of GDPR. We've only seen the beginning of what the future looks like when it comes to the topics of data security, privacy, governance, accessibility, usability, and beyond. 2017, 2018, and I predict, 2019 and 2020 - the world as we know it is being rewritten through policies, regulations, governance, and people rethinking what really makes sense in this new digital realm we already live in.

Jotting down and sharing some quick high level thoughts from the intensity of today. It is a very monumental place in time we are sitting today - and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be alive and a part of it.

Yes - that describes what it's like to be a founder and CEO of a startup. That also describes what it's like to do a tokensale, an ICO, or anything in this new complex-business model blockchain "stuff".

Making decisions whilst drowning in ambiguity and chaos holding a newborn baby in one hand and the Empire State Building in the other hand while balancing on a tight rope standing completely buck naked in front of the mob in a crowded stadium.

That's more like what life has been like the past 12 months and continues to be like for me personally. It's surreal. Time is moving both so slowly and at "warp" speeds at the same time. Most of the time when I'm in a meeting, I am constantly having this "out-of-body" experience that allows me to walk around in the room mentally, while at the same time sitting in the chair and experiencing the meeting firsthand. Surreal. Sometimes my ghost body gets "stuck" in the physical body, where I'm trapped, blind, and suffocating.

There are also many times when it's just really tough. Working with white spaces and green companies, we don't usually have a playbook of best practices to look to. We don't have a board (of advisors or investors) to turn to on speed dial that can provide wisdom and a sounding board. And when a company is growing so fast moving through the stages of its evolution in weeks and months, rather than years - without realizing it, many of the things that a company does actually is setting precedent for its future. Forever.

In moments of really tough decisions, I play the scenario in my head over and over and over. It's me on professional judgment day. I'm standing before a jury of my professional heroes and heroines like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, Ben Horowitz, Steven Sinofsky, Mary Barra, Sarah Imbach, Jeffrey Friedberg, and many more. It's really important to me that I can look at myself in the mirror, and also picture myself standing before the jury of heroes and heroines. I look for "defensible", logical, and figuring out what is the real intent of the decision that makes sense - and then look to what kind of precedent that it will set for the forever future for our employees, our culture, our advisors, our communities, ... and most importantly, our society. Humanity.

And so, that is the state of where I am today - mentally standing before the professional jury.

The average gift size was $750/gift. People do gift bigger when they go together.

Group gifting is not a female thing. It's 49% male, and 51% female.

Most group gift items were gift cards, and gadgets.

About 8 people/group gift was the right size.

Men give about 40% more dollars than women do.

Group gifting beauty and fashion products are not so hot.

The most successful group gifts are very practical and very easy to emotionally support.

My heart hurts. A lot. To say goodbye.

I pushed and pulled and fought as hard as I could to create something out of nothing. I met some very talented and inspiring people along the way. Thousands to people were part of this journey, and I could not have gotten anywhere as far as we did without everyone.

Advisors like Gina Cuff and Hoon Kong. Advisors that also personally invested themselves into the company like: Jonathan Sposato, Barbary Brunner, and Rob Adams. Even informal ones like Leo Novsky andTravis Jones that helped me navigate those tumultuous waters. I worked for Logic20/20 from 2011 to 2014, and they have continued to support me even after leaving the company in ways that I will forever be grateful for - Thank you Christian, Ellen and Travis for everything.

Investors like Gary Rubens, Heather Redman, Rebecca Nordlander, and Rudy Gadre that go above and beyond with the quality time they spend with you. Gary would take me out to hit golf balls for hours while coaching my golf swing and my business acumen. Heather Redman would take me to go get our nails done. Barbary who would take the phone call day or night, within hours of needing help. Man, I remember the day Rebecca called me and said, "I woke up this morning and decided I'm wiring you money. Go out there and make it happen!" She's awesome. Rudy, heart of gold and one of the best brains out there.

Past employees, founders and team members like Stuart Owen, Christie Tarazon, Sean Zhong, Gina Cuff, Melissa Glidden, Arianna O'Dell, Hoon Kong, Jon Peck, and Valentine Gunko. So many memories. The other co-founders: Stuart is raw talent and incredibly smart. Christie not just talented, but my goodness, one of the strongest women I know. What Christie endured and pushed through during that first year is super human stuff.

Lawyers like Lee Schindler and Adam Phillipp. They are absolutely my go-to humans when on a startup journey and would not go anywhere else.

Accelerators and incubators that gave us a shot like 9Mile Labs and 500 Startups. 500 Startups where all of this startup theory really landed. Hard. Very pregnant. So much truth and learning.

Family and friends that helped give us hope, especially when times were REALLY tough. Susan L. who surprised me with gifting requests and proactively gave so much insightful feedback.

Partners like butter LONDON, andB&H Photo Video that went above and beyond to help give the business shape and life. B&H Photo Video Yosef called me days after our first ad-hoc meeting and gave me tips that ultimately gave birth to our beautiful business model. Oh, and Stacy Kincaid who worked with us during the Providence Health relationship. Really good people left and right.

Most importantly, my husband, @luggagedonkey. He covered so much on the family and home front, with our baby, my in-laws, my mother, my brother, everything. And he cheered me on so fiercely, there's no doubt that he's my co-founder in anything I do in life. The best kind of co-founder one could ever ask or pray for.

In the end, the 10 big lessons for 2014-2018 are...

Startups are really hard. Don't do them light heartedly or just because it's the trend. Don't do it because you're bored at work. Do it because you cannot exist in life without the big idea going big. For me, despite all the advice I got from the smartest people I know, I went in head first into a startup business in an arena (ecommerce + gifting) that was proclaimed to be the hardest kind of all. Hundreds of dead startups left and right for over a decade. Millions of dollars put in all kinds of directions and all kinds of ideas. I actually went in seeking to earn the worst war wounds as a startup founder. I definitely got them. Samurai style.

Product Market Fit. That does NOT mean build the product first. That means validate there's a MARKET for your idea first. Talk to consumers. Talk to people that HATE your idea. Ask them if they'd pay for it. And why. And how much. Then ask them to prepay for it. Validating and then FINDING the market is hard enough. Creating a market is extremely difficult.

Team. Team is everything. It's REALLY hard to find people that'll be the right fit for EVERY part of the journey. So as CEO/Founder, you're going to have to make some really tough decisions. Decisions that affect people's lives. You're going to have to let a person go that's been with you for the first 5 months. You're going to raise a lot of funds, and then find that the entire team you have before you doesn't cut it for the next giant milestone that the company needs to accomplish. Some people cannot handle chaos and ambiguity. Some people need management. Hire and be ready to fire fast.

Find the "AJ". In the quest to find Product-Market-Fit, I've picked up a tip from the guy who did the super "grind" for 6.5 years looking for it with Offer-Up, Nick Huzar. Nearing the end of the rope for GiftStarter in the fall of 2016, I met up with Nick and asked him, "How'd you do it? How'd you last 6.5 years with a wife and a kid doing the product market fit finding grind for that long? He gave me the tip of having an "AJ" by your side. AJ is someone that'll turn left and pounce 5 feet into the air when you just jump left. AJ is someone that'll work side-by-side with you pinging 100s of people a day in the hunt for the market. AJ is the someone that'll knock on doors, make photocopies until 540AM all night long, drive you 15 hours across states to make a meeting, and all kinds of stuff to do whatever it takes in the grind. I found my AJ too late - her name is Jin and she worked with me starting in October 2016-April 2017. If only I had found her sooner.

The Wozniak Problem. If you are in a technical realm with your startup, you will need a Wozniak (your startup CTO/leader) who will tirelessly work and burn the candle at all hours of the night to build, fix, kill bugs, and then some. If you're in the technical realm, you as the business CEO will have to quickly gain some base level technical acumen. You can't say that's not my area. Get dirty. Roll up those sleeves. By the end of 2016, I was deploying my own site, making code changes, setting up CloudFlare on my own. When I got stuck, I'd drive over to my technical advisor's place and work side-by-side in the code for hours and day on end to figure it out. I had to do that because I could never get a handle on solving The Wozniak Problem: being permanently married to a technical leader who is 100x or 1000x better than everyone else, who other technical people will follow. People can't follow someone not of their kind. It's hard for an extremely technical expert to follow a business leader. (Oh, and I finally found my Wozniak - way too late.)

Documentation & paperwork. Oh my goodness, do not underestimate the power of documentation. Proper documentation and proper paperwork. I've screwed it up so many many many times until now, I know how much MORE painful it is to not do it right the first time. Operators are the ones that say, "the devil's in the details. Ideas are cheap." Get a good filing cabinet and a good digital filing process from day one.

Think marathon & pace yourself. Finding Product Market Fit is a grind. Be strategic and methodical with the grind. Once you find Product Market Fit, pace yourself to not scale up TOO fast.

Watch out for assholes. No matter how "attractive" they are with the number of people they know, who they know, how much money they might potentially give you or have. Do not proceed. There's assholes posing as advisors just for the vanity of it. There are assholes that give you a lot of great value at a very significant cost. There are asshole service providers that want to be your lawyers when they really should have no business being a lawyer in the first place.

Stay intact. Startups are tough. Business is tough. Doing the grind in finding Product Market Fit or fundraising is tough. The best insight that the advisors and investors of GiftStarter have said to me is no matter what happens, stay true to yourself and the people in your life. We want to work with and invest in the founder that continues to have a great marriage and family despite the hardships. We want to work with and invest in the founder that has good relationships with the advisors, investors, employees, partners, and vendors that they come into contact with. Startups fail - don't lose your marriage nor your principles over it. *** If you have an important significant other in your life, you better be in sync with them with your goals. If you thought it was hard to find Product Market Fit with a supportive spouse, good luck on finding Product Market Fit or doing a startup with a spouse who isn't there to support you. ***

Intentionally choose the big influencers around you. The five people you spend the most time with have the biggest influence on you. Choose wisely. And aim high in terms of character, work ethic, and smarts. It really matters.

Knowing when to walk away.

Spring to Summer of 2016 was really hard. I thought I could be superwoman, having just given birth to my Lentil - that with the help of my awesome team, we could pull through this together. Deep post partum depression. I spent the summer of 2016 in a deep depression. Deep despair. My husband often had to peel my salty existence off the floor and into bed. I did not feel like I even deserved to be alive. I often thought the world, my husband, Lentil, everyone would be better off without me. A waste of space. Unworthy of the air I took in. I looked at the sweet innocent face of Lentil and would end up crying because I felt I did not deserve to be his mother.

My advisors and investors starting sitting down to give me the "talk" in 2016. They told me it was okay - to close it down and give them the write-off. They told me to get going on the next startup because that one was the one they wanted in on. I tried for one last hurrah in the fall of 2016, with my "AJ" by my side (thanks to my investors, especially Rudy, for giving me that one last swing at the ball). Fall of 2016 was not the season of generosity and giving. Power was changing hands - and the air was filled with emotions between the Clinton versus the Trump camps.

​January - March 2017 I spent most of it on the verge of tears or crying my face off or finding a place to belong. I'd be fine, and then while brushing my teeth with my husband in the bathroom, I'd tear up. Standing in the kitchen I'd tear up. I tried to get "out there" and involved in the community to pick up my spirits. I tried to do this "Red Scarf" thing which was all about giving it forward to another woman entrepreneur. I spent a bit of time doing office hours. I put together events. I volunteered to help the Riveter launch. I did consulting on the side. I advised any startup that came our way. I really wanted to help this tiny little startup company called CakeCodes (which later became Storm and one I am part of today).

And here we are. May 2018. I should really have called it quits back in the Winter of 2015/Spring of 2016. I definitely should have in the Summer of 2016. I absolutely should have sometime in 2017. It is now officially May. We are in the first week of May 2018 and I am finally officially and publicly - calling it done.

Hope this post helps someone out there. If you ever want to talk, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. It is so lonely being an entrepreneur, a founder, in startups, being a founder CEO, raising funds, doing the grind, having employees, figuring out how to be a mom as a founder, all of it. The emotional depression and the depth of despair that one experiences is so great, I wonder how many of us are suffering silently.

You'd think that a founder of a company called "GiftStarter" would be AWESOME at gifting. I'm not. Especially when it comes to husband. Remember, I really dislike gifting for the sake of gifting. I really dislike "junk" gifts. Good gifts I think take a lot of time or a lot more budget. ... Sigh.

Here are examples from my husband-gifting my track record so far.

40th Birthday gift: a hand-written birthday card saying I'd be his and only his forever (we had just started dating for a few months at that point. As an entrepreneur at that point, I was living on a very very tight budget.) To this day, he says this is his favorite gift ever.

Christmas 2011: a cool RED Eddie Bauer down jacket. He exchanged it for a down blanket. I learned he's into name brands. Eddie Bauer is not a cool name brand. Really made me sad.

Christmas 2013: Slippers. He still wears these, every day. Funny.

Christmas 2014 + 2015 combined: A perfectly built-to-spec Macbook Pro. He loves this. I've learned that he enjoys the dreaming of, finding the PERFECT specs and details, and then actually going and getting it. The gift of an endorsement and support to indulge is what he really likes!

Christmas 2016: 1 year membership to the Shop, a coworking/hang out space for car-loving affectionado's. We'll see how this went... :)

He's my best life's decision I've ever made joining forces to live life together. Forever.

I'm literally trying to breathe again. Find that emotional and mental space to feel like a human being, not a machine. I don't remember what it's like to be me anymore. I've become a different person, again. Each of these intense journeys reshape the person you are - and it takes a bit of mental/emotional "integration" time to bring yourself back into being a whole person again.

Doing an ICO, is not for the faint of heart. It's not for the sensitive or the self-conscious. It's not for those that do not have the stamina.

All I can say, is since May 2017, it's been a lot of back-breaking long hours. Weeks on weeks away from family, away from husband, and away from my toddler. It's wake up to sleep, nonstop work. At the worst point, we were taking 1.5-3 hour naps at a time working around the clock for weeks on end.

Oh yea, and the crazy schedule. Greece, UK, Switzerland, Cayman Islands, United States, and all over.

Trying to breathe again means forcing myself to not open the phone first thing in the morning. It means giving myself permission to eat lunch (again). It means giving myself permission to call a friend I haven't spoken to in over 8 months. It means giving myself permission to cook dinner for my family. It's been REALLY difficult getting back to a normal human life. The past 8 months have taken a hard hard hard hit on my family, my husband, and my toddler - also my in-laws and my mother who've stepped in to help the family as I've been working so much.

I have 21 days before the end of the year, and before 2017 is gone. I have 21 days to retroactively, make my goal of a blog a week still a reality (though officially LATE). Despite being late, and having only 21 days, I'm going to push to make it happen.

What happened where I disappeared literally for 6 months? This.

Remember, I joined a startup as their COO in May, 2017?

What happened is an ICO (Initial Coin Offering). A STORM Token Crowdsale. I can tell you that to do an ICO, is all consuming. I'm officially beat. Tired. No weekends, no evenings. My husband is beat, the single dad thing while wife works nonstop or is constantly traveling is super challenging.

Sneaking around to drink my banana milk.

That's what life is like with a toddler. I am actually sneaking around with my lil yellow box of banana milk and sucking it down as fast as possible before his little baby nose can tell what's going on. I'm sneaking around with it because it's my guilty pleasure. And it's made of all kinds of crap and artificial colors and sugars that I don't want my baby to ingest.

It's not just banana milk. It's a sip of coke. It's Doritos. It's cookies. It's juice. It's chocolate! It's super spicy food. It's popcorn. It's nuts! It's ramen. ... My husband and I do a dance once the Lentil is out for the night (sleeping his 10-12 hour shift), and we start breaking out the wine, the beer, the chips, and sometimes we even boil a thing of instant ramen.

My husband, dear darling husband has been asking me to get lasik for YEARS now. Yes, he has been asking me to do it. I've been so scared. SO SCARED. The idea that someone will BURN with a laser some part of my eyeball. The idea of some mysterious flap being cut. The idea of smelling my eyeballs being burned.... ... Yuck....

Then my husband, said no new phone until I get it done. Still didn't get it done for years.... (I had my last phone for 3+ years until it literally DIED/or got stolen actually).

Then my husband said, after being inspired from an episode of the Walking Dead. Hey, if anything happens, how are you going to protect our family and our Lentil if you cannot see? Side note, my eyesight was really bad. In the -8.5 range (yes, that's a negative sign.) Very near-sighted.

So that was it. I did it.

Photo above is the last time I ever wore my goggled, THICK eye-glasses. It's been AMAZING ever-since. The gift of sight. WOW. So thankful.